klBRARY OF CONGRESS.! 

# „ _ _,. # 

f UNITED STATliS OF AMERICA. J 



FRANCE; 



PRESENT POLICY 



GOVERNMENT. 



BY JAMES F. LYMAN, 

OF NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, 



i£fa gotk : 

JOHN F. TROW & CO., PRINTERS, 50 GREENE STREET, 

1867. 



FKA]^CE; 



PRESENT POLICY AND GOVERNMENT. 



JAMES F. LYMAN, 



OF NEWARK, NEW JERSEY. 



iffa fork: 

JOHN F. TROW & CO., PRINTERS, 50 GREENE STREET. 
1861 






THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



FRANCE; 

ITS PRESENT POLICY AND GOVERNMENT. 



There is much to remind the visitor of France of the 
boasted Latin element in the origin of its population. 
The baths, the words of the notices posted along the streets, 
and the names of the Cafes and shops are Latin in their 
character. These indications, and other features of French 
life incHne one to the belief that if, as some suppose, races 
are born, develop and decay, and have a natural period of 
existence like the individual plant or animal, they also retain, 
under all changes, certain peculiar characteristics, impressed 
upon them in their origin. These seem the law of their 
being, and continue to exist, as identity in the individual 
mysteriously eludes and survives all changes in character and 
corporeal substance. 

Further acquaintance with the country strengthens the 
impression. To provide panem et circenses for the populace 
was the policy of the Roman governments, and one of the 
chief means upon which they relied for the prevention of dis- 
content, and the maintenance of their power. The concep- 
tion of the duties and obligations of government in France is 
similar. 



For the performance of one of these duties, that of 
providing the people with bread, there has been much 
legislation in France. We read in the Paris journal of the 
morning a description of the action recently had by some 
provincial city under a law for the regulation of the price of 
bread. Formerly the government sought to perform its pa- 
ternal duty of providing bread for its citizens by singling out 
farmers from other producers, and fixing the price for which 
they might sell their grain. But whenever such regulation 
reduced the price of grain below its proper price, as com- 
pared with other products, less grain was raised than other- 
wise would have been. Its natural price was thereby still 
further increased, and the regulation aggravated the very evil 
it was intended to remedy. At the present day the law only 
subjects to a tax bread, when sold at a price deemed unrea- 
sonably high in proportion to the market price of grain. It 
vests in the mayors of the cities discretionary power to de- 
cide when the time has arrived for such tax to be collected. 

But the legislation under which the stupendous changes 
and improvements that have been and are being made in Paris 
and the other cities of France is legislation of the same class, as 
is shown by the motives from which they are in part under- 
taken. These motives are, that by means of the public 
works, the government may provide food and employment 
for the men engaged upon them. It is said that no less than 
three hundred thousand workmen are employed upon these 
works. In this way only are order and tranquilhty secured. 
The working-man does not in France, as in our own country, 
himself form the government. By the theory of the govern- 
ment, he is a troublesome, unreasoning beast, and he must be 
kept well fed in order that he may be quiet. And to keep 
him quiet is, under the Roman and French theory, one of the 
principal objects of government. 



It is plain that the money thus expended in providing for 
these three hundred thousand workingmen, falls back again 
upon the workingmen in the shape of burdensome taxation 
upon every article of food and clothing. So far as the gov- 
ernment undertakes public works as a measure for providing 
the populace with bread, it does not advance towards its 
object, but moves in a circle. 

The works which have been undertaken in France have 
been undertaken principally, however, for purposes of orna- 
ment and show. This is especially true in regard to those 
within the city of Paris. The habitations of the workingmen 
are demolished, and the houses erected in their place are so fine 
that they cannot afford to live in them. The octroi, or tax 
upon provisions and other articles introduced within the city, 
drives the coarse forms of industry, which are so repulsive to 
the eye of taste, from within its limits. And the adminis- 
tration avows in its communiques, that this is no ground for 
regret, as its object is to render Paris a resort for pleasure- 
seekers, and the most beautiful city of the world. 

Enter the city by the Arc de I 'Etoile, and proceed by the 
avenue of the Champs Elysees to the place de la Concorde, 
so called, perhaps, because in its centre, all through the reign 
of Terror, stood the bloody guillotine, and day after day 
wrought the peace of death. Or, stand upon the bridge 
over the Seine, that still bears the name, Neuf, or New, it 
received when built in the reign of Henry IV., and view the 
river rushing along its banks of solid masonry crowned, as 
they are, with noble structures. What city possesses a more 
splendid entrance, a more magnificent place, or a nobler 
river ? 

Beyond the fortifications upon the west and the east, 
stretch the beautiful woods of Boulogne and Vincennes, each 
containing about two thousand acres, and for the improve- 



6 

ment of each of which vast sums have been expended. 
Within the fortifications upon the north and the south, the 
parks of Saint Chaumont and Maison Blanche will soon be 
completed, and upon them all the resources of the modern 
art of landscape gardening are being lavished. Paris, accord- 
ing to the plan which has been adopted, is to rival ancient 
Thebes in magnificence, and like it have its hundred gates, 
with a broad avenue leading to each of them. 

The argument of Baron Haussman, the Prefet de la Seine, 
under whose direction the improvements within the city of 
Paris are conducted, is, that the museums, the statuary, the 
avenues, the architecture, and all the bright, consummate 
beauty of the city will attract countless visitors, whose dis- 
bursements will restore, with ample addition, all that they 
may have cost. 

But visitors, though millions in number, receive for all the 
money they expend for their entertainment, an equivalent in 
the labor and stores consumed in such entertainment. The 
visitors pass away and leave no substantia] product for what 
they have consumed beyond the price they have paid. 
While the coarse industry, so repulsive to refined taste, would 
pay the same price for the labor and stores paid by the visi- 
tors, and in addition to the payment of such price, would 
substitute for the labor and stores consumed substantial prod- 
ucts of even larger value, as a permanent increase to the 
material wealth of the state. This process would be re- 
peated each successive year, and each year a new addition be 
made to such material wealth. Manchester and Liverpool 
are less beautiful than Paris, but their capital is invested in a 
more permanently productive form. 

France was not more completely transformed under Louis 
XIV, than it has been under Louis Napoleon. For this pur- 
pose vast sums have been expended, and to provide them 



bonds have been issued. Besides the payment of principal 
and interest, prizes are awarded to a certain proportion of 
them by lot. Each bond, therefore, besides having the opera- 
tion of an ordinary bond, is also a share in a lottery. The 
sums expended by Louis XIV at Versailles and elsewhere 
were so enormous that no government of France has dared 
to disclose their amount, and the impositions to which they 
led brought on the French Revolution. Louis Napoleon 
may profit by the example. 

The difficulty of paying the interest upon the bonds in- 
creases with the increase of their amount. The consequences 
of the Emperor's failure in his Mexican scheme and his other 
mistakes have not yet been fully developed. For many years 
he has been engaged in repairing and restoring the ancient 
church Saint Denis, near Paris, the burial-place of the kings 
of France, and in providing in it a final resting place for the 
departed members of the Napoleonic dynasty. Meanwhile, 
the ground upon which he himself stands is crumbling beneath 
his feet, and the perpetuation of his dynasty is becoming every 
day more improbable. 

But the Roman governments not only provided bread for 
their people, but the games of the circus for their amusement. 
The same policy is obvious in the administration of the 
French government. What the Cohseum was to ancient 
Rome will the Grand Opera House, now nearly completed, 
be to modern Paris. It forms the centre from which its 
grandest streets and avenues radiate. The airy pirouettes 
of the French danseuses have taken the place of the vigorous 
struggles of the Roman gladiators. The festivals of the Ro- 
mans still survive under different names in the festivals of the 
CathoUc Church. Dramatic representations are promoted 
by means of large annual subsidies to the theatres, and by 
laws for the encouragement of dramatic compositions, in 



8 

order that by means of them the citizens may be reconciled 
to obedience to the laws. The indecencies of the public 
balls of Paris are protected by so ponderous and formidable 
an apparatus of gendarmes and sergents de ville, that they 
are an institution of state. Strange the support that govern- 
ment receives from such an institution. 

The French empire claims to exist by the consent of the 
people, but it is in fact maintained by the army and military 
force, as w^as the Roman. If the legions of France have not, 
like those of Rome, subjugated the world, they have at least 
attempted it. And if the Pretorian guards of France have 
not bartered the throne for the vast treasures received by 
the Pretorian guards of Rome, the allegiance of its gallant 
officers is secured by the hope of avancement, or promotion, 
and is as mercenary. Promotion gives the government its 
hold upon the army, through its officers, and is the most 
formidable obstacle in the way of the liberation of France. 
The army is designed as much for the forcible maintenance 
of arbitrary dominion against any effort of the people to throw 
it off, as for their protection from foreign enemies, and the wars 
in which the present emperor has successively engaged, have 
been undertaken for the sake of its officers, and to increase 
their chances of promotion. To keep up this army, all the 
able- bodied men of the empire are for five years of their lives 
completely withdrawn from productive industry. Large 
sums are also, of course, expended for their support and 
equipment, and other large sunris expended in constructions 
for the same end. Even the avenues and streets of Paris, 
which are opened at such enormous expense, appear to be 
laid out not exclusively with reference to the public conve- 
nience, or even to correspondence with its hundred gates, 
but partly for the formation of strong military points within 
the city, by means of which it might be held in subjection 



9 

in case of disturbance. The very sewers are constructed 
with reference not only to drainage, but also with a view to 
the transportation of troops. By means of the subterranean 
railways laid down within them, troops may be suddenly and 
unexpectedly brought out of the bowels of the earth at any 
point desired, to the surprise and discomfiture of any insur- 
gents who may hereafter erect barricades within the city. 

The body of the law of France, like that of its language, 
is the same with that of Rome. The word lex represents 
the abstract idea of that for which, excepting war, Rome 
was most famous. To be governed by the same laws with 
the patricians was the object for which the Roman plebeians 
struggled so long under the republic. Equality before the 
law was, it is true, finally obtained by them, but only upon 
the loss of liberty. So in France before the Revolution, 
numerous customs and privileges made the position of the 
citizens of different parts of the kingdom, and that of differ- 
ent citizens in the same part, different before the law. Since 
the Revolution, the French have had equality ; but, though 
they have gained equality, they too have lost their liberty. 

Whatever justice and systematic perfection there was in 
the Roman law, was due to the science and equity of the 
jurisconsults, its expounders. So too in France, profound 
learning and disinterested courage have rendered illustrious the 
noblesse de la Robe. But there, as under the Roman empire, 
the fountain head of the law is the will of one man. No man 
in France, unless it be the Emperor, has the feeling inherent 
under the common law to every Englishman and American, 
that he has rights, which knowing, he dares defend. Does 
some venerable deputy in the Legislative body urge, as hap- 
pened a few weeks since, that some imperial decree has not 
the force of law because not sanctioned by the Constitution, 
M. Favre, the bravest patriot in the Chamber, its president 



10 

seated before him high on a throne of royal state, an emblem 
of despotic power, hopelessly exclaims, " N'ous sommes in 
manu " — the argument is useless. 

With us the action of every officer of the law or gov- 
ernment is purely ministerial. The particular instrument by 
whom effect is given to the rule, or judgments of the law, is 
of no personal significance or importance. In France, on 
the other hand, in every official, from the President of the 
Chamber of Deputies down to the common gendarmes or 
policemen, the insolence of office is aggravated by a semblance 
of being the expression of personal will. The very judges of 
the tribunals serve not simply as the mouth-piece through 
which the voice of law and justice is transmitted, but 
vouchsafe so much and such justice, as is warranted by the 
personality, for whom they are the substitute. 

If Rome excelled, or France excels in the perfection and 
system of their lex or statute law, the basis of the authority 
of that lex or statute law was, under the Roman Empire, and 
is now in France, in fact, however that fact may be disguised, 
the will of a single individual supported by force. This is 
the fundamental resemblance between the law of the Roman 
and of the French Empire. In England and America the 
sole basis upon which the lex or statute law and its adminis- 
tration rests for its authority is, jus, or right reason, that law 
whose seat, according to Hooker, is the bosom of God. And 
this is the fundamental difference between the law of Eng- 
land and America and that of the Roman and French Em- 
pires. 

There are, however, Americans who incline to prefer 
the French system of government to our own. They say 
that the steps by which the Emperor climbed to power may 
not have been entirely justifiable, but such men are not judged 
by precisely the same rules with common men. There may 



11 

be some objections to an imperial government in theory, but 
the ends of government are in practice better secured in 
France than with us. Taxation is in its least burdensome 
form. The police is admirable, crime is punished, beggary- 
is unknown, the land is cultivated to the highest degree, the 
inhabitants are industrious, happy and well-behaved, and 
property is secure. The Emperor seeks the good of his 
people. His Steamship Lines, the MessagSrie ImpSriale, and 
the Compagnie Transatlantique are beating the best English 
lines. He has rebuilt every city of France. He is an able 
man, and like another Cromwell has made his country pros- 
perous at home and respected abroad. In our own public 
affairs there is nothing but corruption. Politicians have 
everything their own way. Our laws are made by men like 
John Morrissey and Fernando Wood. 

While such is the language of but too many Americans, 
that of the most enlightened men of France is of a widely 
different tenor. M. Chevalier, Senator of France, and one 
of its most distinguished men, opened his Course of Lectures 
upon Political Economy at the College of France last winter, 
with an elaborate written address. The writer was present. 
The hall was crowded to the utmost, many persons going 
away because unable to obtain admission. The distinguished 
lecturer could find no better illustration of the highest pros- 
perity attained by a community than in the State of Massa- 
chusetts. A large portion of his hour was consumed in a 
glowing description of the triumphs achieved in that dis- 
tant State over natural difficulties by the intelligence and 
industry of its citizens. Productiveness was wrung by them 
even from the severity of its climate and the barrenness of its 
soil. Its very ice was made valuable for commerce, and he 
had seen with his own eyes granite from Quincy landed upon 
the wharves at New Orleans as an article of merchandise. 



12 

Marvellous are the results, said the lecturer, of leaving man's 
labor and industry free ! 

M. Laboulaye, a not less distinguished man, is well 
known in this country for his earnest advocacy of the 
American cause during our late war, when it labored in 
Europe under so much disfavor. He is the author of two 
works, one upon the Constitution, and the other upon the 
history of the United States. Many courses of lectures have 
been devoted by him expressly to the explanation and recom- 
mendation of American institutions. And whatever the pre- 
cise subject of his lectures, the cause he has at heart, is to urge 
without ceasing, at whatever danger to himself personally, the 
value of the very principles of government which form the 
corner-stone of our own system. He has made the propa- 
gation of them his vocation, and his efforts in that vocation 
are skilful, persevering and unrelenting. 

These men are not alone. Others too, worthy successors 
of the philosophic spirits of France of the last century, from 
whom our fathers derived the most democratic elements in our 
Constitution and policy, by conversation, in the lecture room, 
and by the press, labor to the same end. In the cities, inter- 
course among the mechanics and workingmen cannot be 
prevented. Public sentiment in them steadily advances. 
Would that the agitation might also reach the agricultural 
population of the country. 

Towards the close of the last century, the giant of the 
French democracy roused itself from its slumbers, and burst 
the restraints that oppressed it. By one convulsion, it revo- 
lutionized society and resumed its normal rights and estate. 
Not only was royal power overthrown for the time, but the 
royal claim of divine right was overthrown forever. Aris- 
tocracy, too, was ended, and the lands which had been en- 
grossed by the nobles and the church, were subjected to 



13 

indefinite subdivision. Fundamental changes were made in 
the organization of society and wise regulations adopted, which 
were subsequently embodied in a code, known by the name of 
the Code Napolhn. And it is from these changes thus intro- 
duced by the great French Revolution, that have resulted 
the high cultivation of the land and such prosperity as exists 
in France. While all that is good in French legislation and 
institutions may thus be traced to a republican or democratic 
origin, protected by imperialism, aristocracy slowly recovers 
power and privilege, and the Catholic church crawls on Hke 
some foul disease, and silently fastens each year upon addi- 
tional ground. Beneath imperialism inevitably accumulate 
the evils of the old rigime. 

A government does not atone for the promotion of inde- 
cency and vice by causing an appearance of propriety by 
means of a strict police. Until virtue is loved for its own 
sake, it has been but half learned. It is one of the greatest 
advantages of free society, that its vices are upon the surface. 
The doctrines of a party which elects men like Morrissey and 
Wood to represent it, are not likely to crystallize into laws. 

If beggary is unknown in France, it is because it is made 
a crime by its laws for man to seek alms of his fellow-man. 
But close behind Notre Dame, its most ancient and splen- 
did cathedral, the Morgue daily exhibits the unrecognized 
corpses of those who have died by their own hand, in per- 
petual testimony that misery has not at least ceased to exist. 

For the purpose of estimating the value of different forms 
of government, the condition of the great body of the people 
is that which is to be considered. The convenience of the 
favored few is of less importance. The rentier with ample 
means may fare well at the Cafis of Paris, and be less dis- 
turbed by noise and dust there than in New York, but the 
mass of the people in the United States enjoy far more of the 



14 

comforts and luxuries of life than the people of France. Their 
labor is better paid. 

While the accumulation of wealth in a few hands in 
Europe produces a show of greater wealth than really exists, 
the aggregate wealth of the United States is apt to be under- 
estimated, because it is distributed throughout the community. 
But how enormous the resources of the country are was suf-- 
ficiently demonstrated during the late war. The nations of 
Europe were astonished at the exhibition, and they have been 
no less astonished by the ease and quickness with which the 
country is recovering from its efforts. The United States is 
surpassed by Europe in respect to structures already erected, 
but need not fear comparison in respect to productiveness and 
the increase of capital; and this is the material point. The 
increase of population in this country is prodigious, while in 
France there is hardly any increase at all. 

The education and culture, of which material wealth is 
the condition, are, like the material wealth itself, also, morQ 
diffused in the United States than in France. 

All honor is due to the art and to the accomplishment 
and science of the highly educated men of France ; but no 
adequate provision is made for the education of the body of 
the people. They are more ignorant than those of almost 
any other country in Europe, unless it be Spain. They are 
far more so than in the United States. Here the sound 
sense of the country people is the salvation of the state. In 
France, an argument urged last winter in the legislative body 
against the establishment of libraries in the country towns, 
was, that there was nobody in them who could use them. In 
the United States, schools and libraries abound everywhere. 
The education, commenced in the schools, is carried forward 
by service upon the jury, by free speech, both public and 
private, by the free management of private affairs, and by 
participation in public affairs. 



15 

The journals and newspapers of France do not, like those 
of our own country, reach the mass of the population. They 
are hampered with restrictions and vexed with continual 
prosecutions. They ar^ numerous, and edited with ability, 
and form the channel through which the views of enlightened 
men find their way to the public. The standard oF the 
articles contributed to them is high, and their style is a model 
of keenness and force. But much of the discussion of public 
affairs in them is not direct and open, but is veiled in order to 
avoid censorship. As the existence of this censorship is well 
understood, ideas may sometimes make all the more impres- 
sion because their statement is thus veiled, but free and full 
discussion is vastly better than any veiled discussion, even 
though conducted with the consummate skill of the French lit- 
tirateurs. 

As part and parcel of the restrictions upon the press, un- 
favorable foreign comment upon the government is excluded 
from France. The general public is thereby deprived of the 
means of obtaining proper self-knowledge. 

Political meetings are not allowed, and even conversation 
upon political matters is hindered by the traditional espionage 
of the country. The French, accordingly, dislike politics 
as much as the Americans like them. But universal suffrage 
without the right to canvass the merits of measures and of 
candidates is a mockery and a farce, and the claim of the 
emperor, that he rules by the consent of the people, is as 
merely a pretence as was the plea of divine right formerly 
alleged by kings. 

Nor is this all. The civil strife of free countries, though 
perhaps disagreeable to elegant leisure, develops moral courage. 
In France men like Laboulaye and Favre are rare. Physical 
courage may be found, but moral cowardice in political 
affairs is the characteristic of the nation. Had the Girondists 



16 

displayed in the Convention a courage equal to that with 
which they afterwards underwent death by the guillotine, or 
had the cowardice of the Plain in that Convention been less 
abject, the horrors of the French Revolution might perhaps 
never have occurred. 

The Catholic Church broods over the land, and is strong 
in the ignorance and superstition of the people. It usurps for 
itself the office of thinking, and thus renders impotent intelli- 
gence. It substitutes for the obligations of sound morality 
rules of priestly device, disguised under the name of religion, 
and thereby destroys the conscienee and poisons the natural 
instincts of humanity. Austrian power went down at Sadowa, 
before the common schools of protestant Prussia. Let France 
secure for itself freedom and universal education, or, as the 
Roman Empire fell before the barbarism of the North, this 
second Latin Empire will perish in collision with superior 
Northern civilization. 

The nation of Lafayette and Laboulaye needs no apology, 
as a nation, in America. Its bourgeoisie and middle class 
have preserved their industry and purity of morals in spite of 
the examples of profligacy and fraud set them by kings and 
emperors — the greater the genuine worthy that has resisted 
such contamination. Unhappily all classes of society have not 
escaped pollution. For this the kings and emperors are 
jointly responsible. 

Particularly in respect to the relations between the sexes 
does society in France seem to have become corrupt. The 
mind accustomed only to English and American ideas upon 
this subject, is shocked upon first becoming acquainted with 
French literature and French habits of thought. The sole 
interest of the drama and of social intercourse seems to be 
founded upon vice, and in them both vice seems to be al- 
ways triumphant. The express object of its most admired 



17 

writers seems to be to destroy all respect for the most sacred 
ordinances of religion and of society. While to the French- 
man, on the other hand, the ideas of both the EngHshman 
and the American appear supremely ridiculous. 

The subject is a delicate one, and its discussion is difficult. 
It may, nevertheless, be remarked, that as ideas, by which 
the political institutions of the world arc undergoing trans- 
formation, seem to have first had their explicit statement in 
France, it may be that modern society is to receive, and is 
receiving, from France instruction also in regard to the rela- 
tions between the sexes. The morals of England and 
America in this behalf, are undoubtedly far higher than those 
of France, but neither country is so entirely without sin that it 
ought to cast the first stone for her condemnation. The 
chief error in those countries differs in kind from that of 
France, but error there is, even in them. 

The affection of man for woman, and its willing return 
by woman to man, so universal in France, cannot be wholly 
wrong. Honi soit qui mal y pense. Woman in France, 
though virtue in one sense is wanting, preserves her self-re- 
spect, and by the practice of virtues of other kinds vindicates 
her right to the respect of others — a thing almost impossible 
under the public sentiment of England and America. She 
finds in France skilled employment, and exerts an influence 
over public affairs. She there charms the eye with her taste, 
and the feelings with her smile. Through her tact and sym- 
pathy society becomes a delight, and existence a privilege. 
While her graces and virtues are all her own, church and 
state are in no small measure responsible for her faults. Let 
them no longer, with their ordinances, attempt to eradicate 
or suppress the natural emotions of man, but regulate, cherish, 
and sanctify them, and marriage will cease to be mercenary, 
and will regain the honor that is due to it. 



18 

Although certain peculiarities are impressed upon a race 
or nation at its origin, from the influence of which it never 
escapes, yet the notion that the destiny of the Latin, of the 
Teutonic, of the Anglo Saxon, or of any other race is mani- 
fest, is an idle one. Each individual knows of his own con- 
sciousness, and finds, upon experiment, that, subject to the 
laws of nature and the circumstances that surround him, the 
action of his own free will is an ingredient in the formation 
of his destiny. The action of the free will of the individu- 
als of whom a race or nation is made up, is an ingredient no 
less decisive in the formation of its destiny, and, as this is 
the ingredient which is subject to control, it is the one which 
it is the part of wisdom mainly to consider. 

The founders of this republic are justly entitled to honor 
and esteem, because they willed and accomplish:d the organ- 
ization of a state based upon the principles of freedom ; and 
their descendants of this generation will be entitled to kindred 
honor and esteem, when they have by their voluntary action 
made complete the recognition of those principles, and estab- 
lished equal rights for all. 

Nations, as well as individuals, must work out their own 
salvation. The plea of French imperialism, that it exists by 
the consent of the people, is fatal to it. If the people are 
competent to the adoption of it, they are fit to decide for 
themselves in other matters. But self-government is also 
their duty ; and they are bound, as part of that duty, to 
devise and select the best methods for the performance of it. 

Useful labor, the beneficial exercise by man of his fac- 
ulties, is that upon which honor and social distinction ought 
properly to rest. According to Montesquieu, France exists 
for glory and for victory. Hereafter let it seek its glory 
solely in useful labor, and its victory only over the elements. 
Then will its destiny be happiness. 



